It's an interesting letter! Enjoy!
Apokaukos, John. In Noctes
Petropolitanae. Ed. Athanasios Papadopoulos-Kerameus. St. Petersburg , 1913. pp. 258-9
Translation by Scott Kennedy
[Action of the synod regarding the coronation of the despot
Theodore as emperor]
The divine apostle when discussing belief in Christ says “with
the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he
confesses, resulting in salvation.” We the bishops over this western part, who
occupy higher and lower seats, embrace this apostolic maxim, which we believe
resulting in righteousness of the heart, that is to say the proclamation,
crowning, and anointment of our mighty and holy lord emperor, lord [for kyr]
Theodore Doukas, while we confess this with our mouths and write this with our
hands. This is because he has become our deliverer behind God, our savior, and
salvation in and of itself. He has borne many labors for the Christians here.
He has perspired sweat many times on our behalf. It is appropriate to quote the
poet [Homer] here, “passing sleepless nights and blood-filled days” he divvied
them up with contests of war and conflicts for the extinction of the godless
Latins who fought against us and furthermore the Scythians from Aimos. Common
usage call him the “Yolk.” On account of this exertion, this sweat, this
struggle, and he has restored all at once all western areas pertaining to us,
which were held captive and destroyed, by his boundless sweat and excessive
labor to their ancient Christian manner of life and state, and he has cleared
them completely of the hard-to-number Latin and Scythian mobs, and he has won
back many bishoprics of God and holy monasteries from Latin and Scythian pollution
taking care to adorn the former refugee bishops of God with their own bishoprics
and restoring the latter abbots again [to their monasteries], such that the
former and latter again lead their own flocks of sheep. Better yet and and what
is agreed upon by everyone is that he is the descendant of diverse emperors and
justified in being elevated to the imperial honor as a fiery soldier and as a
sleepless guardian. He has assumed the throne as recompense on agreement with
bishops and judgment of priests, monks, soldiers, and the rest of all the
Christians here. Thus he has assumed the rank of emperor and we confess that he
alone is emperor and we crown him and anoint him and certify with our
signatures below what is believed and confessed by us resulting in
righteousness and salvation. In the month… [No month is given in the text]
